The Old Cat Basket Trick

Can you believe it? There I was, dozing happily under the table, listening to the rain battering against the windows and dreaming of a sunny field full of dandelions and clover when without any warning I was scooped up, plonked into the old cat basket and dumped in the car.

Great, a visit to the vet. Just how I'd planned to spend the day. My absolute, unfavourite happening and not a thing I could do about it.

The journey was bearable. I spent it making the basket comfortable by tugging and scrabbling my blankets and pulling them about with my teeth until I got it to my liking.

When it was time to see my doctor, Simon, I'd prepared myself for the worst. The weigh-in wasn't too bad, I was perfect as usual. The stomach prodding was ticklish then he peered unceremoniously at my rear end and listened to my heart. Not too scary. That is until he decided to check my teeth. It was horrible. He held my mouth wide open and shone a torch at everything in there, it lasted for ever. "Do his snuffles get any worse than this," the vet asked. Snuffles? I wasn't snuffling, I was making the loudest sound I could with my mouth jammed wide open and a whacking great torch stuffed inside. My PCG explained for me. "Ah", he said, "it's just for my benefit is it?" Too right. Who else would

I be complaining about. I ask you.

Not a hair was left unturned and to crown it all there was the myxie jab. As a matter of fact I didn't feel a thing but what would be the point in arguing anyway.

I was just breathing a sigh of relief at being put back in my basket when I was whipped out again and he attacked my toe nails. I don't know what I would have done if he'd decided to trim my beautiful whiskers.

The old cat basket felt comfortable and cosy on the way home and thinking about it now, I quite enjoyed it all. It was a change. I had a ride out, met some very friendly people and Simon always always gives me a cuddle and chats to me when it's all over. My Cat and Rabbit Care Clinic in Northampton won an award for good "cattitude" in a national competition so I know I'm one very lucky bunny.

Harve came through with flying colours and a bag of pure, dried grass. The vet said he can't repeat often enough to owners of bunnies that grass and hay are so important to a rabbit's diet. Too much packet food leads to obesity and poor digestion which in turn can result in tummy problems, dirty bottoms and the horrendous fly strike. Harve is checked daily and twice in hot weather when there is more chance of flies being around. This is the time of year for an application of Rearguard. Some rabbits put up with such a lot of unnecessary suffering. Rabbits Deserve Better is the motto of the Rabbit Welfare Association and Harve backs that one hundred per cent.

A Day in the Life of .......

You'll be well up to speed now with the fact my primary care giver knows very little about bunnies. The new training sessions are not going as well as I'd planned. Take a quick look at yesterday's diary.

7.30 am. PCG comes downstairs. Dash about, give her a lick and tell her it's 9.30 am, time for my breakfast. No luck.

8.00 am. Trip her up when she goes for another cup of tea. Tell her it's 9.30 am. Ignored.

9.00 am. Sit on mat in utility room, stare at my empty bowl. No reaction. Run in circles round her feet, trip her up again and tell her it's 9.30 am. Nothing.

9.25 am. Fed up. Go to sleep.

9.45 am. A whistle ! 24 grams of crunchy deliciousness. Eat too much too quickly. Flop out under table until things shuffle down.

11.00 am. Very wet day so am allowed upstairs to play. Find newspaper by side of bed so decide to help with tidying.

12.00 Finish sorting newspaper. Exhausted. Get no thanks for expertise. Am chased downstairs.

Sleep most of afternoon with time off for grass and hay.

5.00 pm. Have good wash. Manage to get ends of ears into mouth. All ready for TV.

6.00 pm. Television time ! Do not disturb until I'm ready to play

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You see my problem? I wonder whether a doe in the house would be as difficult to train as my human female.

No comment. No doe.

Outdoor problems

The buzzard is flying high across the valley today which doesn't bother me unduly as long as he stays there. I have more pressing problems closer to home now the garden birds are in action and raising their broods. They attract all the local cats with their twittering and fluttering and might just as well hire PA equipment and shout,"Attention all moggies! A happy nesting time to you! Here we are, ready for the chase and by the way, there's a tasty bunny here as well."

Next door's cats Big Kenny and Mollie know they have to stay away from my part of the garden but a black and white bully has moved into the neighbourhood and is terrorising everybody. He has a red collar and very obvious male bits. He sprays anything and everything and has even been through Ken and Moll's cat flap, duffed poor Kenny up and sprayed their hall. He needs sorting out but I wouldn't want to be the one to do it. As a prey animal it's better to keep my head down and get on with my diary. I wonder if the buzzard has spotted him yet. That red collar is a dead give away even from a distance. Mmm, I'll just sit on the doorstep, might see something to my advantage.

Cats and foxes are a problem and Harve is very small. We always stay with him outside although he doesn't seem inclined to venture far. I planted patches of grass, carrot, parsley and mint but he still goes for the valerian, rose petals and something that looks a bit like clover. Gosh, he's stubborn.

Early Days

It's time for more about the early days before I came to live here. The story is quite sad but has a happy ending. This is Willow.

Changes to my life began about two years ago around New Year. As I said in I Knew I Was Special, I was living with Joanne, Simon, Willow the dog and Summer the blue cat. Suddenly I didn't see so much of Joanne and I spent more time on my own. Don't misunderstand me, I was very fond of my garden house and was well cared for but I missed my long play times with the family. It wasn't long before I heard snatches of conversation and words I did not understand. I knew carrot and no, Harvey and bedtime but not these new ones. Cancer and operation were strange sounds to me and my Joanne cried a lot. She was only thirty eight years old at the time, I was four so in rabbit years we were pretty much the same age.

The other thing that happened about the same time was an addition to their family, another Hungarian Vizsla. A puppy. What bad timing. She was absolutely manic and tried to catch me and toss me about. Willow had no influence on her at all neither did Joanne nor Simon.

Poor old Summer had her own problems. Her food bowl was always empty. Things looked very bad for my freedom but then my life took an unexpected turn and I was taken to live with the family's older generation. I had always spent my holidays with them as the only pet in the house so nothing was strange or scary. I knew all the best places to sit and where the softest patches of soil were in the garden so I could make a good scrape to doze in. My litter tray and food bowl were in the same place and there was a great smelling cardboard box which used to hold vegetables given to me to use as a basket. From that moment I became a full time house bunny and as you have already heard, a very important one at that.

Joanne is fine now and comes to see me very often as she lives nearby. She is going to run the Edinburgh marathon on Saturday to raise money for breast cancer research wearing a fancy decorated bra on top of her other running clothes. I hope I don't have to see that.

And our life changed! Harve took to the house like a duck to water. We began by having his hutch indoors thinking he would need the familiar. Wrong! He sticks to us like glue on a shoe and we were assimilated into his life on his terms. Having always kept cats we have been bowled over by his uninhibited show of affection, companionship and confidence. Who would have thought so much love could be given by such a tiny scrap of fur.

A Very Private Affair

Just look at this. It's a caecotroph or a bunch of caecotrophs, I'm not sure which. Would you believe I am supposed to eat it? There's a lot being said about carbon dioxide emissions and recycling but I'm sorry planet, I can't do it. Look at the size. It's an inch across.

According to the famous rabbit expert Frances Harcourt-Brown, I am supposed to be motivated to clean them up by the smell and stinging feeling as they come out. I can't. It's as simple as that.

I know exactly when I need to use my litter tray for pellets and peeing but I can't get to grips with the soft stuff. As you can see, I left it tidily on my mat as close to my litter as I could. One of them will pop it down the lavatory for me, I do such a lot of things for them after all. We have a very reciprocal relationship, a true bonding. On my terms, naturally.

Before you wrinkle your nose and say,"Yuk," or "What, in the house? How awful" think of dogs and cats. Just take a look at Celia Haddon's cat George, for instance. When George has eaten somebody Celia has to clean up so many piles of sick she doesn't know which pile is which and who caused them. One small clump of veggie caecotrophs a day isn't too bad at all.

Some rabbits have deformed backs or are too fat to reach the necessary place to clean.

Harve isn't as bad as he thinks. I would guess three days out of seven he sorts himself out.I've tried putting it back in the litter tray or showing it to him. He is more than happy to look and sniff. "Yep, that's mine."

Refresher course.

It's definitely time for a refresher course for my lot. They are not up to scratch and are getting lax and lazy. For instance, if I sit on my back legs in my basket I should get carrot. If I sit on the corner of the kitchen mat I should be given a nibble or two of apple or pear. Surely that's easy enough for anybody to understand. If I sit at her feet and look up I need my head and ears stroked so I can push my face into her hand, stick my nose between her fingers and give her a good wash. When I sit and stare at a closed door it means I want it opened. If I turn my back I want to be left alone. Is that easy or is that easy?

Any human two year old could learn these things considering the number of times a day I run through them with her but until she learns, there is no point in moving on to the latest rule which is to leave me upstairs to play in my burrows for as long as I like. I'll just have to continue stamping my foot until she realises I will come downstairs in my own time and at my own pace.

Thank goodness we coincide at afternoon nap time! Harve's morning and evening activities can be hectic when he is in a bouncy mood. He learns so quickly. If a thing happens once he thinks it is written in stone. If I don't follow his rule he scuttles around my feet until I give a firm "no". Sometimes it works, sometimes I lose my balance. Simon insists he caught him reading a book on particle physics in the corner of the hutch when he lived with them. A sideways shot at me I think.

And we all know how to translate the foot stamping game.

1. Here I am. Watch me, watch me, I am now in the room.

2. I am behind the television, so there.

3. Don't you dare poop-check me.

4. I do not want to come downstairs and you can't make me.

Interesting that the warning thump for danger in the wild has become a means of communication in the house.

Guess what!

Guess what! We have another house on top of this one. I've just found it. There are loads of places to hide and so many burrows I could invite friends for a sleep over and never see them until the next day. We could hold rabbit Olympics. I would win the speed running easily and the kamikaze jumps. I am so excited.

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A dog called Ruby came yesterday so I had to stay in the utility room in my basket. She is a cocker spaniel with long floppy ears, even longer than mine, which I could easily have bitten to keep her under control. The person Ruby lives with has an animal beauty parlour so the kitchen smells like garden flowers when she goes. I hope my lot never take me there. Better to have my fur pulled out at home at moulting time and I certainly don't need a bath. They stuck my rear end under the tap once because I have this aversion to eating my caecotrophs. Well, wouldn't you? Anyway, I make sure I am squeaky clean at morning check-up time now. Got them there.

Bang goes my peace of mind. Harve has made his first excursion upstairs. A mat was left too near the staircase and he used it as a link jump. He set off up the stairs like a hare round a greyhound track. He refused to come down for ages so I had to hang about while he investigated every nook and cranny. The mat has been removed but there will be trouble ahead when he plucks up courage to cross the shiny, blockwood floor. He is sitting in the hall now thinking about it.